Pegasus My Story - A Breeder's story, Darling View Thoroughbreds

You are here:

Darling View thoroughbreds – Brent &
Clive Atwell

Breeding has been in our family forever.
The difference now is that we are a lot more commercial. We used to just breed
for ourselves to race horses. Our family history in horses started with my
dad’s grandfather, who trained and owned the 1925 Perth Cup winner, Great
Applause. From there the family has always bred horses to race, both in harness
and thoroughbreds. My grandfather was into breeding for harness and he and my
dad (Clive) went on to breed and race thoroughbreds. When I came back to work at the farm about 8
years ago we decided to make a go of it commercially.

We stand a couple of stallions. Our
hallmark stallion, Patronize, has been very good to us over the years. He has an excellent runners-to-winners ratio,
and has given us a number of great race horses over the years. He has been very consistent and has sired a
couple of nice stakes winners now. We
also have the new season sire, Lucky Street.
He has been very popular in a tough climate and has attracted a good
book of mares this season. A great race performer and locally bred, he is by
Oratorio, a champion 2 yr old sire. He
was a champion 2 yr old himself in WA and went on to win a stakes race at 3
years. We are really excited to have him here.

Looking forward to February, we have a
draft of 11 yearlings heading to the sales.
It’s a really good mix of WA bred horses, well related to WA stakes
winners, and also a nice bunch of eastern states bred horses. It won’t be long before they come in for
their yearling prep, Michelle from Milnes will help us assess each horse and we
fine tune a specific diet for each one to give them the best chance. We pay
attention to every detail to ensure our horses are professionally grown and
prepared.

I’m passionate about the industry and have
become quite involved; I managed to get roped into being the president of the
WA Thoroughbred Breeders Association. But it is exciting, we can only do so
much, but if we try and improve each year we are progressing in the right
direction. We are trying to really
promote the yearling sales this year and promote thoroughbred racing in WA,
which with good prize money and breeding bonuses, is very exciting. We also are involved in the proposed new
sales venue, which is a very positive development for breeding in WA. We intend that the 2019 sales will be held at
the new, purpose built venue, making the whole experience more pleasurable and
professional for both buyers and sellers.

We’ve had a very decent year on our farm
here. We have had some good rain, which
has given us a great hay season. We grow
and cut all our own hay for the farm and we also run about 110 Angus cattle on
a couple of properties. The hay fits in
well with our feeding program and combines with our ration, Pegasus
Studmaster. We simply combine the
pellets with Lucerne chaff and our meadow hay.
This way we know that all the nutrients for our horses, both during
gestation and then once the foals are born and growing are provided from
Studmaster, while the hay and Lucerne provide the additional energy and fibre
they need to remain happy and healthy. We made the change to Studmaster when we
made the decision to become commercial, and the increase in size and bone of
the stock we’ve produced since then is very noticeable.

My tip for getting through the breeding
season – patience! It is not always easy.
We have had an up and down season breeding wise. We have lost a couple of really good
broodmares and a couple of nice foals, some in the east, and one to snake bite
here. You just have to push on through,
and thank god for insurance, but it does test you. The end-product is really why we do it. I get a huge thrill out of breeding the horse
and then taking it through to the sales, selling it, and then watching it go on
to race. The thrill of racing a nice
horse, and seeing horses you’ve bred win races is really special – it is a
passion.

Everyone is always trying to breed the next
champion and you just never know what is around the corner, and that’s why we
keep doing it.